Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Natural Minds PDF full book. Access full book title Natural Minds by Thomas W. Polger. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Thomas W. Polger Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262264167 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
In Natural Minds Thomas Polger advocates, and defends, the philosophical theory that mind equals brain—that sensations are brain processes—and in doing so brings the mind-brain identity theory back into the philosophical debate about consciousness. The version of identity theory that Polger advocates holds that conscious processes, events, states, or properties are type- identical to biological processes, events, states, or properties—a "tough-minded" account that maintains that minds are necessarily identical to brains, a position held by few current identity theorists. Polger's approach to what William James called the "great blooming buzzing confusion" of consciousness begins with the idea that we need to know more about brains in order to understand consciousness fully, but recognizes that biology alone cannot provide the entire explanation. Natural Minds takes on issues from philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics, moving freely among them in its discussion. Polger begins by answering two major objections to identity theory—Hilary Putnam's argument from multiple realizability (which discounts identity theory because creatures with brains unlike ours could also have mental states) and Saul Kripke's modal argument against mind-brain identity (based on the apparent contingency of the identity statement). He then offers a detailed account of functionalism and functional realization, which offer the most serious obstacle to consideration of identity theory. Polger argues that identity theory can itself satisfy the kind of explanatory demands that are often believed to favor functionalism.
Author: Thomas W. Polger Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262264167 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
In Natural Minds Thomas Polger advocates, and defends, the philosophical theory that mind equals brain—that sensations are brain processes—and in doing so brings the mind-brain identity theory back into the philosophical debate about consciousness. The version of identity theory that Polger advocates holds that conscious processes, events, states, or properties are type- identical to biological processes, events, states, or properties—a "tough-minded" account that maintains that minds are necessarily identical to brains, a position held by few current identity theorists. Polger's approach to what William James called the "great blooming buzzing confusion" of consciousness begins with the idea that we need to know more about brains in order to understand consciousness fully, but recognizes that biology alone cannot provide the entire explanation. Natural Minds takes on issues from philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics, moving freely among them in its discussion. Polger begins by answering two major objections to identity theory—Hilary Putnam's argument from multiple realizability (which discounts identity theory because creatures with brains unlike ours could also have mental states) and Saul Kripke's modal argument against mind-brain identity (based on the apparent contingency of the identity statement). He then offers a detailed account of functionalism and functional realization, which offer the most serious obstacle to consideration of identity theory. Polger argues that identity theory can itself satisfy the kind of explanatory demands that are often believed to favor functionalism.
Author: Riccardo Manzotti Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company ISBN: 9027265097 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
What is the conscious mind? What is experience? In 1968, David Armstrong asked “What is a man?” and replied that a man is “a certain sort of material object”. This book starts from his question but proceeds along a different path. The traditional mind-brain identity theory is set aside, and a mind-object identity theory is proposed in its place: to be conscious of an object is simply to be made of that object. Consciousness is physical but not neural. This groundbreaking hypothesis is supported by recent empirical findings in both perception and neuroscience, and is herein tested against a series of objections of both conceptual and empirical nature: the traditional mind-brain identity arguments from illusion, hallucinations, dreams, and mental imagery. The theory is then compared with existing externalist approaches including disjunctivism, realism, embodied cognition, enactivism, and the extended mind. Can experience and objects be one and the same?
Author: Thomas W. Polger Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198732899 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first full investigation of multiple realization--the idea that minds can be realized in ways other than the human brain. They cast doubt on the hypothesis and offer an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, and in chemistry, biology, and related fields.
Author: U. T. Place Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0195161378 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
This is the one and only book by the pioneer of the identity theory of mind. The collection focuses on Place's philosophy of mind and his contributions to neighbouring issues in metaphysics and epistemology. It includes an autobiographical essay as well as a recent paper on the function and neural location of consciousness.
Author: Carlos Muñoz-Suárez Publisher: Springer ISBN: 331917374X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
What are the grounds for the distinction between the mental and the physical? What is it the relation between ascribing mental states to an organism and understanding its behavior? Are animals and complex systems vehicles of inner evolutionary environments? Is there a difference between personal and sub-personal level processes in the brain? Answers to these and other questions were developed in Daniel Dennett’s first book, Content and Consciousness (1969), where he sketched a unified theoretical framework for views that are now considered foundational in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Content and Consciousness Revisited is devoted to reconsider the ideas and ideals introduced in Dennett’s seminal book, by covering its fundamental concepts, hypotheses and approaches and taking into account the findings and progress which have taken place during more than four decades. This book includes original and critical contributions about the relations between science and philosophy, the personal/sub-personal level distinction, intelligence, learning, intentionality, rationality, propositional attitudes, among other issues of scientific and philosophical interest. Each chapter embraces an updated approach to several disciplines, like cognitive science, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind and cognitive psychiatry.
Author: Andrew Brook Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521836425 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 464
Book Description
An up to date and comprehensive overview of the philosophy and neuroscience movement. At the heart of the movement is the conviction that basic questions about human cognition can be answered only by a philosophically sophisticated grasp of neuroscience's insights into the processing of information by the human brain.
Author: Richard Swinburne Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199662568 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
Richard Swinburne presents a powerful case for substance dualism and libertarian free will. He argues that pure mental and physical events are distinct, and defends an account of agent causation in which the soul can act independently of bodily causes. We are responsible for our actions, and the findings of neuroscience cannot prove otherwise.
Author: Thomas W. Polger
Author: Thomas W. Polger
Author: Riccardo Manzotti
Author: Thomas W. Polger
Author: U. T. Place
Author: Paul Badham
Author: David Malet Armstrong
Author: C. V. Borst
Author: Carlos Muñoz-Suárez
Author: Andrew Brook
Author: Richard Swinburne